As an aspiring filmmaker, I
have a short list of great unsung actors I want to rescue from
obscurity and/or typecasting. One of them, sadly, died on February
27. J.T. Walsh was 54; he had a heart attack. He'd been typecast
as a stock whitebread villain because of his looks and voice;
having seen some of his more courageous performances, I knew he
was capable of more.

You may not know J.T. Walsh
by name, but you've seen his face. Perhaps the most successful
(in terms of box-office $) movie he was in was A Few Good Men
(92), where he played Jack Nicholson's toady. You may also have
seen him in Good Morning, Vietnam (87), Backdraft
(91), The Client (93), Nixon (95), Executive
Decision and Sling Blade (both 96), or Breakdown
(97). These are only the best-known of the 56 films he did in
the last fifteen years. He did his best work in films you may
not have heard of. Let's fix that now.

For J.T. at his darkest, your
best bet is The Babysitter (95), an overlooked De Palma-esque
thriller with Alicia Silverstone in the title role. J.T. leaves
his two kids with Alicia and goes to a party with his wife, but
he's preoccupied with erotic daydreams of Alicia. In his most
absurd fantasy, J.T. catches Alicia soaping herself in the tub,
then joins her -- fully clothed! The movie builds to a
disturbing climax in which J.T. and two other guys come after
Alicia, obsessed with their fantasies of her. J.T. is unforgettable
as a middle-aged horndog who gives himself over to his most decadent
fantasies; he's both funny and scary.

For a lighter J.T., check out
Christopher Guest's brilliant The Big Picture (89), where
he's hilarious as a smarmy studio head who suggests "improvements"
on Kevin Bacon's script. Great movie, funnier than The Player
in my humble op.

For balls-to-the-wall J.T.,
rent Needful Things (93), an underrated Stephen King movie
that improves on King's bloated novel. J.T. is a selectman, "Buster"
Keeton, one of many people in Castle Rock driven mad by Max von
Sydow. As in The Babysitter, J.T. loses control of his
shit, becoming little more than an animal. If you've seen a few
of J.T.'s whitebread, stick-up-the-ass performances, it's a shock
to see him devolve so thoroughly here. He's the movie's twisted
heart and soul.

Director John Dahl recognized
J.T.'s genius, casting him in his Red Rock West (93) and
The Last Seduction (94), the latter of which only offers
a tiny bit of J.T. They're both great little noirs, but Red
Rock West is J.T. at his most shady as a bar owner who mistakes
Nicolas Cage for a hit man.

Then there was J.T.'s last really
striking turn, as the pervert who gleefully shares sexual-abuse
stories with Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade (96) --
reprising his role in the short film Some Folks Call It Sling
Blade (93).

Unfortunately, most directors
used J.T. in the most obvious and boring way, as a rigid bureaucrat
or politician -- or a robot, like his soporific Bob Woodward in
Wired (89). At his best, J.T. could play human monsters
who aroused our revulsion and sympathy in equal measure. Far more
than the '90s Jack Webb he was typecast as, he was a ballsy actor
who could hold his own alongside the most flamboyant actors in
the business: Nicholson, Robin Williams, Anthony Hopkins, Nicolas
Cage -- he could play with the best because he was in their league.